Top 10 Companies Disrupting the Real Estate Industry in 2017

—Editor-in-Chief at Disruptor Daily— Cas is a B2B Content Marketer and Brand Consultant who specializes in disruptive technology. She covers topics like artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, and big data, to name a few. Cas is also co-owner of an esports organization and spends much of her time teaching gamers how to make a living doing what they love while bringing positivity to the gaming community.

Smart home technology is changing the way realtors sell property, with new benefits such as micro-climate control, IoT lighting, connected link sensors, and more. You can read more about some of the best home automation tech to watch in 2017 here.

However, that’s not the only thing changing in the real estate industry. New methods and new applications using disruptive technology are changing the way we view real estate purchases and even sharing.

For example, James Altucher, in his book, Choose Yourself, paints a picture of a freelance world where people choose their own businesses and their own schedules by absolute necessity of the economy. This change opens a door for a huge increase in office sharing and the companies who can support this need. (By the way, this is a great book that's only 99 cents on Kindle right now, free to rent for Prime users, and is worth every page. You can check it out here. This is not an affiliate link.)

SpaceTrak is a cloud-based SaaS application to help analyze and forecast real estate requirements for the purpose of strategic facilities planning and architectural design programming projects. It uses data to take the guesswork out of this sort of planning and run strategic “What-If” scenarios more quickly and accurately.

ZenPlace is harnessing machine learning, artificial intelligence, and chatbots to help both tenants and property owners. It helps by analyzing local markets so that property owners can optimize their rent prices. It also helps with property management, tenant screening, and tenant concierge services for a flat fee of 5% of rent received.

KeepEyeOnBall is bringing virtual reality to the real estate industry, hospitality, and construction. In this way, users can avoid the hassle of driving from place to place to explore every property in which they might be interested. Instead, just throw on your VR headset and take a virtual property tour. This can work for pre-existing spaces, but can also be used for development projects so that customers can survey homes and offices before they are ever built. Plus, KeepEyeOnBall, especially their team photos, are 100% on point with their branding. Everyone looks like they have passion for the project. The whole company looks incredibly promising.

OfficeBook calls themselves the “Airbnb for offices.” Both tenants and landlords can submit their information to OfficeBook including the office space features and their personal space needs. Then, the software helps find matches between the desires of renters and the availability of landlords. They currently serve San Francisco and Austin, but are coming to New York soon.

Spacy calls themselves something similar—”the Airbnb for on-demand workspaces.” Rather than requiring the “contact us” option to actually rent a space like many companies in this niche, Spacy automates this process via an app and takes a percentage of each reservation. Tenants win because they can quickly book a space for whatever time they need it. Landlords win because they don’t have to worry about managing booking, payments, and other administrative tasks required for most share-space companies.

OneWrk has a different concept for sharing workspaces. They are creating a network of share workspaces across Canada that any member of OneWrk can check into or out of at will. They also let members invite guests via an app so that an entire group can use these beautiful spaces in lieu of public meeting grounds such as hotels.

“TOWER360 is a Big Data Platform with flagship modules dedicated to Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Asset Class providing real time and data driven insights to Asset Managers and Landlords to manage Assets, Deals, Leases, Tenants over one single platform (Web and Mobile) across the entire value chain of CRE.”

Their blending of big data and SaaS in an industry with serious need is definitely worth tracking this year.

FlatShaker is a peer-to-peer (P2P) service to help renters find properties in new cities with the aid of people who are already living there. Because you are able to connect with your own peers instead of an agency, there is an added level of trust versus current methods. The person who is already in the city can send potential renters updates, photos, and videos about properties they might be interested in.

What disruptions in the real estate industry are you looking forward to in 2017? Are there any changes you would like to see in the real estate industry? Let us know in the comments below!

—Editor-in-Chief at Disruptor Daily— Cas is a B2B Content Marketer and Brand Consultant who specializes in disruptive technology. She covers topics like artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain, and big data, to name a few. Cas is also co-owner of an esports organization and spends much of her time teaching gamers how to make a living doing what they love while bringing positivity to the gaming community.